Can a Building Message Board Be an Open Forum?

Q: I live in a large Upper West Side co-op with a BuildingLink online message board. Management approves all posts, without providing guidelines on what might be approved or rejected. This is a private bulletin board, and I don’t expect complete freedom of speech. Still, it feels like anything more than an innocuous “for sale” announcement gets blocked. The moderators have rejected posts about an Upper West Side school rezoning debate; a post questioning what materials would be used for building improvements; and a post from a shareholder asking about a Paris apartment exchange. Should we have a stated policy? Is management being too controlling or is this normal oversight? Can shareholders request that questions not be subject to management approval?

A: Of the roughly 4,300 residential buildings that use BuildingLink message boards, about 85 percent moderate the posts that residents make, with 90 percent of those posts getting approved by management, according to data provided by BuildingLink.

Your board sounds more conservative than many others, however the problem may be about the content that shareholders try to post. People generally seem to use these message boards for pretty innocuous stuff. According to BuildingLink, half of all the posts that appeared on message boards were advertising items for sale. Other popular topics included requests for babysitters and housekeeping. The issues you mentioned are thornier, potentially making management nervous.

Mark A. Hakim, the director of the co-op and condo department at the Manhattan law firm Chaves and Perlowitz, advises boards to restrict the use of online message boards to business uses, like posting the names of candidates for board elections, disseminating building notices, and letting residents make service requests. Turn the message board into an online water cooler and the board could open itself up to a possible defamation suit should conversations take a heated turn.

Your building should circulate a written policy explaining the permitted uses of the message board so residents understand the rules. Residents could also request a more open forum. However, the board would not be obligated to change its policy. To do that, you’d need to elect board members sympathetic to your cause.

Consider a different forum for more impassioned debates. Set up a private Facebook, Yahoo or Google group for shareholders, moderated by residents. With such a group, the residents, not the management, would decide how to restrict the content and conversations. But brace yourself: Moderating social media groups can be a headache.